Cleveland Museum of Art

Musical Scene

Gerrit van Honthorst

Date

1625–55

Medium

black ink wash over pen and brown ink and black chalk over graphite on gray-brown paper with white heightening, incised

Culture

Netherlands

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Utrecht artist Gerrit van Honthorst was internationally known as a portrait painter, but he also gained a reputation as a painter of raucous musical scenes and parties. This drawing was once part of an album of compositional types that the artist showed to prospective patrons. Though the cheerful theme of a man and a woman sharing a song seems innocent, such unions often had amorous or lascivious connotations in 17th-century Holland. In 17th-century Holland, scenes of men and women playing music together often had amorous connotations.

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